Just A Dream
by Tyler AM
Summary: What happens in the moment you are told someone you love is never coming home again?


_Little one shot that came to me after one too many listens to Carrie Underwood! If you haven't noticed I tend to get a lot of ideas from music so most of my fics will have a soundtrack of sorts...just go with it :)_

_As always - to my amazing betas - Nick, Marjo and Stella - you are the tops!_

_Ok this is inspired by Carrie Underwood's "Just a Dream" listen to the song prior to reading, honestly!_ .com/watch?v=jLntFKtR66g&ob=av2n

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><p>Some people say your life flashes in front of your eyes before you die. Others say that it is not your life in its entirety, but moments - mostly of happiness - that rush back into your mind. Still others say that only those you love most come to you in memories of times shared. I used to wonder what happened in the moment you were told someone you loved had died. No one really ever mentions that, do they? They talk about remembering every detail of the moment they were told - but what about what went through their minds? Would the same thing happen? Would the life I had shared with them flash before me entirely? Or would it just be the moments? Still shots of time captured forever but only in my mind. Nothing tangible...nothing to hold onto - just the remembrances.<p>

I guess I don't have to wonder any more.

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><p>Running down the hallway was never easy with a ton of books in her arms. When said hallway was packed to the brim with people, it made it that much more difficult. She was already running late to her tutoring session and couldn't even concentrate on the number of people she had likely knocked over in her quest to reach her destination. She barreled forward, not truly watching where she was heading. She didn't see the person standing right in the middle of the hallway.<p>

She crashed right into them and fell hard on her backside on the linoleum floor, her books flying everywhere.

"I'm so sorry…" she screamed toward the mystery person as she moved to try to gather up her fallen textbooks.

"It's ok." She heard him say. HIM…hum…she stopped short as she reached for a book and noticed he was holding it out to her. She looked up from the book and caught him staring her straight in the eyes. She couldn't help the flutter that erupted in her stomach.

"Thank you." She stammered as she took the book from his hand, never letting her eyes leave his. They were entrancing and no matter how much she told herself to look away, she couldn't.

"You're welcome." He said with a sweet smile on his lips and, she noted, it made his eyes just light up like stars.

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><p>It was three days later he stopped her in the hallway after school.<p>

"Just wanted to ask if…maybe…you would want to have dinner with me Friday night?" he asked. She could tell he was nervous, he was wringing his hands over and over and his posture was slightly hunched. He met her eyes but just barely and she couldn't suppress the smile that seeing him caused.

"Sounds great."

"Great. I'll pick you up at 7?"

"7 is perfect." She responded and he began to turn to walk away. "My name is Evelyn, by the way…"

"Evelyn Brewster, I know." He responded making her eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline. "It's nice to meet you…" he extended his hand to her and she placed hers into it lightly. "I'm Roy."

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><p>The night went by in a haze. She barely remembered dinner because she was concentrating so hard on not saying something stupid and being mesmerized by his eyes. When he suggested talking a walk through the Central Park Conservatory Garden she consented, maybe too quickly, and slipped her arm through the crook of his elbow as they wandered the garden. The sun was just beginning to set turning the sky brilliant shades of orange mixed with hues of pinks and reds.<p>

They walked along through the southern English Garden taking in the scent of the Japanese Lilac trees which hung overhead. She closed her eyes when they paused for a moment allowing the smell of the blossoms to intoxicate her senses. That's when she felt his hand on her cheek. She opened her eyes and was met with his deep brown eyes. He leaned into her and kissed her lightly on the lips.

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><p>She stood in front of the large wooden doors in the vestibule of the old church. Her parents had been married here and it was her only dream…to be married in the same church. She nervously smoothed the bottom of her lace-covered dress with a gloved hand.<p>

"Won't work…" his voice surprised her and she startled and turned toward the hallway to her left. "There is no way you could look any more beautiful in that dress than you do right now. You could almost give you mother a run for her money."

Her father walked towards her and placed a soft kiss on her cheek. She knew he meant the words. He was not thrilled with their decision to marry. Kept telling her she was too young, that at 18 years old she should be going to college and dreaming of what her life could be…not settling down with the boy she had met in high school. But she didn't listen. She never listened. As much as she loved her father she knew he would never truly understand. She was in love. The music in the next room beyond the doors, started to play and the sweet instrumental chords of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" began to fill the church. She felt her father's hands move to place her veil over her face.

"Shall we?" he asked her, still slightly wishing she might change her mind. She smiled at him as a lone tear fell from her eye.

"We shall." She said resolutely and linked her arm through the crook of his elbow as the doors opened wide.

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><p>It was six years later when they sat at the dinning room table in their apartment in Manhattan. Roy was almost through his Master's program at NYU and had decided what he really wanted to do with his life. He had told her for years he wanted to make a difference. That seeing the city he loved ripped apart by lawlessness and violence just didn't sit well with him. She looked at him with an apprehensive smile on her face, part of her happy to see the passion she had so missed return to him with a vengeance, the other part terrified of what he was about to tell her.<p>

"I want to be a Police Officer. NYPD. I already got the information and I want to apply to the training academy." She just starred at him. He couldn't be serious.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, baby. I'm serious."

"Roy, have you really thought this through?"

"Evelyn…I have. It's the only thing that makes sense." She took in a deep breath as he reached his hand across the table. She allowed his touch to envelope her…she looked into his eyes – those eyes she knew she could never resist no matter how hard she tried to – and smiled.

"What all do you have to do…?"

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><p>It was after one o'clock in the morning and he wasn't home. She kept telling herself not to worry. Not to worry…don't worry Evelyn, she kept telling herself, he's working a case. He's helping out Kate and Ryan and Javier and he'll walk through that door at any moment, say he's sorry about being so late and he'll kiss you on the cheek and then you'll go to bed and everything will be fine! With each minute that passed it became harder and harder to repeat the mantra. She also stopped believing it.<p>

A knock on the door at just past two o'clock in the morning startled her and she ran to the door, unlocked the deadbolt and ripped the door open. She barely noticed the two uniforms standing on either side of her doorway, but she did notice Kate Beckett and Richard Castle standing in front of her door looking disheveled.

"Evelyn, can we come in?" Kate said stoically. She could tell the detective was trying everything to keep an even tone in her voice.

"Of course, Kate, Rick, come on in." She said and stepped aside. She watched as Kate and Rick stepped over the threshold into her home. Kate looked back at the uniforms waiting on either side of the door and nodded to them. She closed the door as the uniforms set themselves with rigid posture, eyes continually scanning the street.

"Are the girls and Joey in bed?" Rick asked her.

"It's two in the morning if they aren't they have some explaining to do. What's going on?"

"Evelyn, why don't we sit?" Kate said gently and began to move the woman toward the couch she had been occupying for the past two hours.

"Ok…" She said uncertainly. She allowed Kate to guide her to the couch and barely noticed the look the detective and the writer shared as she sat. "Ok Kate, Rick…what's going on? You look like you've seen a ghost." There it was again, they exchanged another look. She was getting worried now. "What is going on?"

"Evelyn…"

"Kate! I mean it…you two are freaking me out and you are going to answer my question, you hear me? What is going on?" She noticed the change in Kate's countenance instantly. Her shoulders slumped forward just slightly and she watched as the young woman took a shaky breath. The words sounded so far off to her ears when Kate finally utter them…

"It's Roy…"

"No…" before she could even stop it, the word came tumbling from her lips over and over again. It was a plea to Kate to stop, to not say the words…because once she said them, it would be real.

"Evelyn, he's gone. He's not coming home."

"We're so sorry…" Rick said as he placed one of his strong, soft hands over her cold delicate ones.

"NO!" she finally screamed at the couple in front of her. She stood from the couch and notice the flinch in Kate and Rick's expressions as she railed at them. "No…no…no!" she repeated over again willing the words to not be true.

"Evelyn…" she could just barely hear Kate's voice now – so soft and warm, so full of pain and sorrow. It was covered up by the sounds of her own sobbing as she fell to the floor, her entire body shaking. The world was caving in around her…the edges of her vision going black and she couldn't stop it. The tears fell unhindered from her eyes as she screamed the word over and over to the universe: "No!" it wasn't true… "No" he wasn't gone… "No" he was coming home... "No! No! NO!"

At one point she felt a tender arm reach around her and pull her close. She could feel the body it belonged to trying to take in shaky breaths as their tears fell and melded together on the rug below them.

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><p>"I guess I don't have to wonder anymore?" Evelyn spoke the words plainly as she set her teacup on the coffee table in front of her. Her gaze fell onto the fireplace where his badge now sat next to the folded up flag they handed her at the funeral. The flag that was supposed to be a comfort in her loss. The flag that was supposed to be a reminder of the fact that her husband had died a hero. The flag that was her sorrow – the only thing left of him besides their children. She found herself clinging to it on tough nights. When the memory of him became too unbearable to handle she found herself in the living room holding onto the flag as if were him. As if it could convey even a fraction of the warmth and security and love his embrace had offered her all those years.<p>

"The wondering would be better." Kate said raising her teacup to her lips and taking a sip of the translucent slightly green tinged liquid. Evelyn looked back to her and smiled sadly.

"Is that what happened for you?"

"Yeah…it was all of the moments. But then all of the regrets, as well. Every argument we ever had, every time I told her I hated her and ran off angry. It took me three days to remember that I had told her I loved her when we talked on the phone that afternoon."

"I didn't."

"Didn't what?" Kate asked.

"I didn't tell him I loved him." Evelyn said, as the tears began to slip slowly down her face. "He grabbed me and kissed me and told me he loved me. I looked him right in the eye and said 'I know', kissed him and left to get the girls to school…I'll never stop regretting that I didn't say it back. And now he'll never know."

"He knows, Evelyn. He knows." Kate set her teacup on the table next to Evelyn's and reached towards her. She grabbed Evelyn's hand tightly in her own.

"Don't have regrets, Kate." Evelyn said after a moment of silence had passed between the women. "Don't live your life in a way that you will look back and wonder 'if only'."

"Evelyn…"

"Kate, I've lost the love of my life. The only man I'll ever love. He's gone forever…he's never coming home and I have to live with the fact that I didn't tell him I loved him the last time I saw him. Don't live with regret, honey. Don't waste one more second."

"I won't…" Kate responded quietly.

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><p>thanks for reading Turtledoves!<p> 


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